A chatbot acts hostile. The test version of the Roomba vacuum cleaner collects images of users in their private situations. A black woman is incorrectly identified as a suspect based on facial recognition software; this software tends to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color.
These events are not just disruptions, but examples of more fundamental problems. As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more integrated into daily life, ethical concerns are increasing, from privacy issues to race and gender bias in coding to the spread of misinformation.
Society at large relies on software engineers and computer scientists to ensure that these technologies are created safely and ethically. As a sociologist and doctoral candidate interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, we are currently investigating how engineers in many different fields learn and understand their responsibilities to society.
But recent research, both ours and that of other scientists, points to a disturbing truth: A new generation of engineers often seems unprepared to deal with the social consequences of their work. Moreover, some seem indifferent to the moral dilemmas their careers may present; just as advances in artificial intelligence intensify such dilemmas.
Aware but unprepared
As part of our ongoing research, we interviewed more than 60 electrical engineering and computer science graduate students from the top engineering program in the United States. We asked students about their experiences with ethical challenges in engineering, their knowledge of ethical dilemmas in the field, and how they would respond to future scenarios.
First, the good news: Many students recognize the potential dangers of AI and voice concerns about personal privacy and the potential for harm (e.g., how racial and gender biases can be written into algorithms, either intentionally or unintentionally).
For example, one student expressed concern about the environmental impact of AI, stating that AI companies are “using more and more greenhouse power. [for] minimal benefits.” Others discussed concerns about where and how AIs are being applied, including military technology and producing fake information and images.
But when asked the question: “Do you feel that you are equipped to respond to fraught or unethical situations?” students often said no.
No way. … It’s a little scary,” one student replied. “Do you know who I should go to?”
Another was upset about the lack of education: “I [would be] coping with this without any experience. … Who knows how I will react.”
Other researchers have similarly found that many engineering students are dissatisfied with the ethics education they receive. Non-formal education generally emphasizes rules of professional conduct rather than the complex socio-technical factors underlying ethical decision-making. Research shows that engineering students often have difficulty recognizing ethical dilemmas, even when presented with specific scenarios or case studies.
‘A box to tick’
Accredited engineering programs must, to some extent, “include issues related to professional and ethical responsibilities.”
However, ethics education is rarely emphasized in the official curriculum. A study evaluating undergraduate STEM curricula in the United States found that coverage of ethical issues varied greatly in terms of content, amount, and severity of presentation. Additionally, analysis of academic literature on engineering education revealed that ethics is generally considered a non-essential education.
Many engineering faculty express dissatisfaction with student understanding, but report feeling pressure from engineering colleagues and students to prioritize technical skills in limited class hours.
In a 2018 study, researchers interviewed more than 50 engineering faculty and documented hesitancy, sometimes even outright resistance, to incorporate public welfare issues into engineering courses. More than a quarter of the professors they interviewed thought ethical and social impacts were outside of “real” engineering work.
Nearly a third of the students we interviewed in our ongoing research project share this apparent disinterest in ethics education, referring to ethics classes as “just a box to tick.”
“As an engineer, I will be furious if I am paying to attend an ethics class,” one of them said.
These attitudes sometimes extend to how students view the role of engineers in society. For example, one of the people we interviewed in our current study said that an engineer’s “responsibility is just to create that thing, design that thing, and… tell people how to use it.” [Misusage] The problems don’t concern them.”
One of us, Erin Cech, followed a group of 326 engineering students from four universities in the United States. This research, published in 2014, suggested that engineers actually became less concerned about understanding ethical responsibilities and the public implications of technology throughout their education. When we followed up with them after they left college, we found that their concerns about ethics did not return as these new graduates entered the workforce.
Join the business world
It seems to work when engineers receive ethics training as part of their degrees.
Engineering professor Cynthia Finelli and I conducted a survey of over 500 working engineers. Engineers who receive formal ethics and public welfare training in school are more likely to understand their responsibility to society in their professional roles and to understand the need for collective problem solving. Compared to untrained engineers, they were 30% more likely to recognize an ethical issue in their workplace and 52% more likely to take action.
More than a quarter of these engineers reported encountering a worrying ethical situation at work. But nearly a third said they had never received training in public welfare either during their education or career.
This gap in ethics education raises serious questions about how well the next generation of engineers will be prepared to navigate the complex ethical landscape of their field, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Of course, the burden of caring for the public welfare does not fall solely on the shoulders of engineers, designers, and programmers. Companies and regulators share responsibility.
But the people who design, test and fine-tune this technology are the public’s first line of defense. We believe training programs owe it to them, and the rest of us, to take this training seriously.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization providing facts and authoritative analysis to help you understand our complex world. Written by: Elana Goldenkoff, university of michigan and Erin A. Cech, university of michigan
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Elana Goldenkoff receives funding from the National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures.
Erin A. Cech receives funding from the National Science Foundation.